One Fatal Mistake After the Other
by MsAmiClassified
Summary: To think an accident with some lemonade led to all this. We kept making so many fatal mistakes and it ended with one of us dead and the other swamped with regret. After all that's been said and done, the only thing left to say is, "I'm sorry," and the only thing left to do go back and fix it all before we lose it all. May be underrated.


_**No pairings. May be underrated, I'm not sure. Contains flashbacks and italics abuse.  
**_

_**I needed a break from my current story (in a different fandom) and this would've written itself anyway. And at that it kinda is right now. I blame myself for listening to the opening theme for this totally awesome horror anime (*coughhigurashicough*) over and over again. I have to say, said anime gives me ideas for a different P&F fic (chapter fic) w/ a lot of stuff in common w/ this one but in a different continuity (though I could very well make it otherwise. AHAHAHAHAHAHA *shot*). Also very sadistic but it has way more bright spots. (I've been planning for it w/ help from Maniac's Maniac who by the way is a really good writer, you should check out her stories.) Though in my defense, my chapter fic fails so this would be good practice. Anyway, on with the story. **_

_**I obviously don't own P&F and probably never will. Though that'd be pretty awesome if I did.**_

* * *

I breathed hard as I snapped out of a sort of dreamlike state.

_It was definitely a dream,_ I thought, forgetting that most people (and platypi, in my case) don't fall asleep and dream standing up. But anyway, the dream basically consisted of Dr. D finally stepping up his game and at some point I think he may have almost discovered Phineas before I broke his laptop and hand. It ended with him trying to inject me with something before it got out of ha...

I made out a shiny cylinder reflecting the little light that was entering through the windows (it was night).

_It couldn't be..._

I found my way to the light switch, but it didn't work. So instead I resorted to using a flashlight I pulled out of the same place my hat comes from.

What I found was an empty syringe, a dented toolbox, and the obviously dead body of one of the most important people in my life. And in that short moment, my worst fears were confirmed.

_**NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO **__**NO! THIS CAN'T HAVE HAPPENED! IT SHOULDN'T HAVE AND IT CAN'T HAVE!**_ my mind screamed, but I knew it had and it was terrible and unbelievably painful to know.

I didn't break down, it wasn't part of me to do that. But my knees buckled from what I could feel. I sat in that position for what felt like hours though I knew from the somehow still working clock that it was just a few minutes. I was having some trouble gathering my thoughts but I knew from staring at the cast on Doof's hand that what I thought had happened almost certainly had. Though some of my memories made me feel as though I was just paranoid and hallucinating.

Eventually I had the will to stand and walk to the body which had his arms outstretched like he was trying to glomp me. I was starting to gather more information than I had upon my initial glance, like how the syringe was broken but didn't seem to contain any liquid, or how the toolbox had my handprints on the sides but not the handle, or how the doctor had evidently died from a bludgeon to the head from said toolbox and his bad (well, worse, anyway) hand seemed to be pointing to something on the counter huh?

I turned and walked to the counter where I found an audio recorder under a dented metal bowl. The play button apparently still worked since I managed to hear this:

_If anyone listens to this, it probably means I'm dead._

_I should tell you this, though you may not be able to help it, at least not by this point: About three years ago, I made a sort of serum, I think it's called, that gives whoever manages to get it into their system delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations. I never used it, since I could never bring myself to, it was more the wrong-never-do- sort of evil, the kind even I never tampered with. It's like how people make a discovery that they should keep to themselves since it would do more harm than anything._

_Well, I forgot to discard it. I finally remembered a few days ago but then in a moment of stupidity left it on my kitchen counter where it managed to find its way into the lemonade I was making for Perry the Platypus, and you know where I'm going with this. I've been busy making an antidote, having neglected to also do THAT as well, though for now it takes a few minutes to kick in after injection..._

I glanced at the syringe.

_...Meanwhile trying to make sure he doesn't kill me first, he's already used my laptop to break my hand._

I turned my gaze to the same hand that was pointing to the bowl and audio recorder earlier.

_I'm almost finished, I just need some way to make it kick in automatically instead of 15 minutes to an hour after use..._

You could faintly hear the sound of a jetpack in the audio.

_Too late for that. And if Perry the Platypus is listening to this, I'm sorry I happened to be dumb enough to let this happen..._

The tape recorder managed to get stuck on that last sentence, repeating a chorus of random sentence parts but managing to always repeat the words, _"I'm sorry,"_ which ended up being the only words repeated at some point.

_I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..._

I shut it off. I couldn't keep listening to the sad, slightly desperate words as they'd been repeated over and over again.

I placed the audio recorder back on the counter and stared back at the bloody mess I'd fallen into enough delusion to make.

I had a brief second of wondering if that was faked so I'd think the syringe didn't do something bad, but I shrugged it off since otherwise we probably wouldn't be here and if that theory was wrong and I believed it, it meant the antidote didn't work, which was the last thing I wanted to believe. Then I found myself trying to assign blame for this.

His fault for making the serum. My fault for shooting him down when he tried to clean up said disaster. His for not being careful about it. Mine for killing him. One fatal mistake after the other. Blaming just one of us was impossible.

I looked at the syringe again, noticing it had been used before being destroyed. I started slowly recalling everything since the lemonade incident, having a clear idea where I figured there were delusions.

Lemonade: real. I spit it out since it had something bad in it, but I still ended up swallowing a little.

Sudden outburst during one of my mission logs: delusion. Triggered by something real (the cameras somehow weren't working), but a delusion.

Broken hand: real. Caused by a delusion, but real.

My near exposure: delusion. Everyone had gone out by that point.

Me having just murdered Dr. D: as much as I wish it was a delusion, real.

I thought harder about that last one, finding myself staring at the doctor's now blank sapphire eyes in the process. Slowly I started to recall the murder itself.

_The day was normal enough when it started. Just the standard get in, get in the very easy to escape trap, but the monologue was much shorter than normal. Mainly Doof just said he was too busy for an -inator since he was busy working on something that needed to be injected into me, now known as the antidote to me but convinced me to accelerate my escape since I was expecting poison. Or worse, which I'd known was possible especially after meeting the other me._

_"Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit. I just need to inject this little thing and we'll be done."_

_He was just about to press the needle into my neck when I lashed out of the trap and had him pinned against the wall. I probably strangled him a little, I'm not sure, but somehow he managed to make the injection and I thoughtlessly released._

_He stood using the wall as support for a few seconds and coughed a little._

_"I told you, it won't hurt. You have to believe me, please!"_

_I wasn't thinking straight by that point and didn't hear him._

_I went for another go which he dodged, and he threw what was left of his laptop past my head. I looked back at it, and when I turned he had somehow reached the counter since apparently there weren't very many options left apart from the audio recorder. I managed to find the toolbox, evidently meant to be red though someone had painted it neon green instead, which I picked up at the sides and threw. He placed the bowl over the audio recorder before it landed on the side, making a dent and possibly injuring some of the scientist's fingers. The toolbox landed on the floor with a thud as well as the sound of the building tools inside falling out of place._

_Doof backed away from the counter._

_I managed to sneak up on him and hit him from behind, knocking him over. I landed in front of him just next to the toolbox which I picked up again and prepared to either throw or strike._

_He got up but not to his feet (whether that was a conscious decision I don't know) and tried to reach out to me._

_"Trust me."_

_I was still essentially deaf as I went with the strike._

I looked to the window. _Worst. Mistake. Of my life._

I walked off to the bathroom being in the mood to wash my fur of the blood that had gotten in during the murder. There wasn't any soap so I looked in the drawers, one of which happened to contain...

A blueprint.

_Backwards-inator (Emergency purposes only)_

I had a crazy idea to borrow.

* * *

It only took 30 minutes and having to organize everything in the toolbox first though I'm surprised I wasn't arrested while doing it (even though again, the security cameras were out), but the darn thing was finished. It was actually pretty small, smaller than the blueprint dictated but in my defense I'm pretty short and needed to reach the control panel.

Huh. For my first solo invention it looked pretty good. (If I ever have to do it again, I won't be happy. This on its own has been painful.) I typed in the commands for how far back to rewind, date and time.

_July 21, 2008; 9:14 AM_

I hit enter.

The past few days whirred by before my eyes in reverse order of everything that happened. The various mistakes undid themselves: the murder, the incident with the laptop, everything flowed in reverse like how you hit the rewind button while watching a movie and it goes backwards in fast motion until you reach just the part you want to rewatch, until finally I found myself in what looked like a giant orange from where I was sitting.

I looked at the clock. 9:14. Just as I was hoping for.

"Gee, these rants make me thirsty," a familiar voice complained.

_Yes._

"I'm gonna get some punch. If you want some, there's only enough for me but I did make some lemonade earlier." Doof turned to me. "You want some?"

I shook my head no. He started walking into the kitchen.

"Oh. Well, that's okay, I was just making it to make it and I hey, could you give me a few seconds?"

You could hear a ruckus in there along with a few complaints about something being in there that shouldn't have. The doctor returned about 2 minutes later.

"Sorry about that, something got in the lemonade that definitely shouldn't have. I poured it into the biohazard bin since it's essentially poisoned now. Good thing you said no or it might have ended badly."

_Yeah, good thing._

"The punch is all yours after we finish the routine as usual."

I smiled.

* * *

_**And that wraps up this lovely oneshot. I hope you enjoyed. I am not doing anything else on this, there's really nothing else I can squeeze out of it.**_


End file.
